What is the meaning of wake in this sentence?

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I wanted to wellness to seize her again and drop her running into the colourful wake of London life.

-->The noun "wake" has several meanings, so I feel confused. What is the meaning of "wake" here?

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Type: Question • Score: 7 • Views: 2,564 • Replies: 16

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@kathy79,

That's a very odd sentence, and i do wonder if it was written by a native speaker.

However, in this sense, wake means "the track left by a moving body (as a ship) in a fluid (as water); broadly : a track or path left" (that's from the Merriam-Webster online dictionary). So the colorful wake of London life is a figurative usage meaning in the path of London life, the colorful path of London life.

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@kathy79,

Yes. The track of disturbed water left behind a moving ship.

The sentence is fine if you delete the first "to".

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Around here, a wake is the waves left behind by a boat motor. There are many "No Wake" signs in our canals because the wake wave action left behind can be high and can damage boats and the shoreline. These waves spread out from behind the boat and can last a long time before finally reaching shoreline.

I think your quote means that life in London left a wake that was very colorful and the author wanted her to be immersed into it.

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@PUNKEY,

I think we'd call that a "bow wave", the wave or waves which are generated at the front of the boat and which spread wide on either side.

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@Setanta,

Setanta wrote:

That's a very odd sentence, and i do wonder if it was written by a native speaker.

It was. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/When_God_Was_a_Rabbit

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@izzythepush,

Your link does't show if the sentence was properly transcribed.

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@Setanta,

It doesn't and you can't cut and paste from amazon's book previews, but if you're willing to wade through it all you'll find it about half way through. http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=EwMM-DA5_YAC&pg=PT126&lpg=PT126&dq=I+wanted+to+wellness+to+seize+her+again+and+drop+her+running+into+the+colourful+wake+of+London+life.&source=bl&ots=66abMXAYqm&sig=Rr-vSijTQRKLfswnktPJmnuu_YI&hl=en&sa=X&ei=E2o4UvnZA-uN7AapsYCwBw&ved=0CDIQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=I%20wanted%20to%20wellness%20to%20seize%20her%20again%20and%20drop%20her%20running%20into%20the%20colourful%20wake%20of%20London%20life.&f=false

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@izzythepush,

Oh, i'll take your word for it. In that case, that sentence, at least, is piss-poor writing. That this author was acclaimed really means nothing--after all, some people think Douglas Adams is a great author. There is no accounting for taste, and increasingly less account taken of good writing.

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@McTag,

Quote:

The sentence is fine if you delete the first "to".

Now that there is a damn insightful bit of parsing and comment.

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@JTT,

De nada. So I suspect it's just been wrongly transcribed.

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from a review at

http://www.denverpost.com/ci_18099639

Quote:

"I wanted us to listen again to the bells of Bartholomew as we ate croissants and read the newspapers and gossiped about people we knew and those we didn't. Most of all I wanted wellness to seize her again and drop her running into the colorful wake of London life. But Ginger never got to go outside again, and in the end I told her she wasn't missing much because we had done it all, lived it all, hadn't we? So there wasn't much point."

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@Setanta,

Quote:

In that case, that sentence, at least, is piss-poor writing.

You keep making these grand pronouncements but you never provide any backup for what is simply your bullshit, Setanta.

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Hi friend
I think here is the meaning of "wake” is "aware of” I am not sure.

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@kathy79,

The pairs wake, waken and awake, awaken have formed a bewildering array since the Middle English period. All four words have similar meanings, though there are some differences in use. Only wake is used in the sense "to be awake," as in expressions like waking (not wakening) and sleeping, every waking hour.

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@SaeKyung,

This is all very interesting, but the question has been answered, above, and you are "barking up the wrong tree".

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Arf!

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What is the meaning of wake in this sentence?

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